town planning

Submitted By:-

Malvika Dhammy

Roll no. A091058

Sem-9, Sec- B

1

Assignment - 6

TOWN PLANNING

A. SIR EBENEZER HARWARD

The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in

1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended

to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts", containing

proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture.

The now well discussed event that initiated practical town-planning in Great

Britain and in many parts of the world was the publication in 1898 of the book,

"To-morrow: A peaceful path to Real Reform," by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Ironically,

concerning the book, The Times wrote "an ingenious and rather entertaining

attempt - the only difficulty is to create it.“

"... by so laying. out a Garden City that, as it grows, the free gifts of Nature- fresh

air, sunlight, breathing room and playing room- shall be still retained in all needed

abundance“

Due to the expense of travel for the working and lower classes of the time, the

country offered a very romantic retreat from town life, despite its worse

deprivation. Around the early 1800's the more well off classes were becoming

more aware of the deprived, as it began to affect them.

It is interesting to note that in all these early ventures, private enterprise was very

important, e.g. James Silk Buckingham's plan for "Victoria" in l849; from which

Howard obviously derived the radial diagrams for Garden City. Buckingham states

that his scheme was designed to "avoid the evils of communism". At this time the

technical and the political aspects of town planning thought were very closely

related. Howard in his own book thought that his Garden City should be a private

enterprise, though he did think that parliamentary powers would be necessary for

a larger project.

2

Ques1. List down the contributions towards modern city planning by the following-

a. Sir Ebenezer Harward b. Fredrik Olmsted c. Catherine d. Clearance Perry

Garden City, which is to be built near the centre of the 6,000 acres, covers an area

of 1,000 acres, or a sixth part of the 6,000 acres, and might be of circular form,

1,240 yards (or nearly three-quarters of a mile) from centre to circumference.

Image 1 is a ground plan of the whole municipal area, showing the town in the

centre; and

Image 2, which represents one section or ward of the town, will be useful in

following the description of the town itself.

3

Six magnificent boulevards--each 120 feet wide--traverse the city from centre to

circumference, dividing it into six equal parts or wards. In the centre is a circular

space containing about five and a half acres, laid out as a beautiful and well-

watered garden; and, surrounding this garden, each standing in its own ample

grounds, are the larger public buildings--town hall, principal concert and lecture

hall, theatre, library, museum, picture-gallery, and hospital.

The rest of the large space encircled by the 'Crystal Palace' is a public park,

containing 145 acres, which includes ample recreation grounds within very easy

access of all the people.

Running all round the Central Park (except where it is intersected by the

boulevards) is a wide glass arcade called the 'Crystal Palace', opening on to the

park. This building is in wet weather one of the favourite resorts of the people,

whilst the knowledge that its bright shelter is ever close at hand tempts people

into Central Park, even in the most doubtful of weathers.

Here manufactured goods are exposed for sale, and here most of that class of

shopping which requires the joy of deliberation and selection is done. The space

enclosed by the Crystal Palace is, however, a good deal larger than is required for

these purposes, and a considerable part of it is used as a Winter Garden --the

whole forming a permanent exhibition of a most attractive character, whilst its

circular form brings it near to every dweller in the town--the furthest removed

inhabitant being within 600 yards.

4

On the outer ring of the town are factories, warehouses, dairies, markets, coal

yards, timber yards, etc., all fronting on the circle railway, which encompasses the

whole town, and which has sidings connecting it with a main line of railway which

passes through the estate.

This arrangement enables goods to be loaded direct into trucks from the

warehouses and workshops, and so sent by railway to distant markets, or to be

taken direct from the trucks into the warehouses or factories; thus not only

effecting a very great saving in regard to packing and cartage, and reducing to a

minimum loss from breakage, but also, by reducing the traffic on the roads of the

town, lessening to a very marked extent the cost of their maintenance.

The smoke fiend is kept well within bounds in Garden City; for all machinery is

driven by electric energy, with the result that the cost of electricity for lighting and

other purposes is greatly reduced.

The refuse of the town is utilized on the agricultural portions of the estate, which

are held by various individuals in large farms, small holdings, allotments, cow

pastures, etc.; the natural competition of these various methods of agriculture,

tested by the willingness of occupiers to offer the highest rent to the municipality,

tending to bring about the best system of husbandry, or, what is more probable,

the best systems adapted for various purposes.

Dotted about the estate are seen various charitable and philanthropic institutions.

These are not under the control of the municipality, but are supported and

managed by various public-spirited people who have been invited by the

municipality to establish these institutions in an open healthy district, and on land

let to them at a pepper-corn rent, it occurring to the authorities that they can the

better afford to be thus generous, as the spending power of these institutions

greatly benefits the whole community.

5

Garden City

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public

administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father

of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that

title upon Andrew Jackson Downing.

Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his

senior partner Calvert Vaux, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York

City, as well as Elm Park (Worcester, Massachusetts), considered by many to be the

first municipal park in America.

Drawing influences from English landscape and gardening, Olmsted’s principles of

design, generally speaking, encourage the full utilization of the naturally occurring

features of a given space, its “genius”; the subordination of individual details to the

whole so that decorative elements do not take precedence, but rather the whole

space; concealment of design, design that does not call attention to itself; design

which works on the unconscious to produce relaxation; and utility or purpose

over ornamentation.

A bridge, a pathway, a tree, a pasture: any and all elements are brought together to

produce a particular effect.Olmsted designed primarily in the pastoral and

picturesque styles, each to achieve a particular effect. The pastoral style featured

vast expanses of green with small lakes, trees and groves and produced a soothing,

restorative effect on the viewer.

The picturesque style covered rocky, broken terrain with teeming shrubs and

creepers and struck the viewer with a sense of nature’s richness. The picturesque

style played with light and shade to lend the landscape a sense of mystery.

Scenery was designed to enhance the sense of space: indistinct boundaries using

plants, brush and trees as opposed to sharp ones; interplay of light and shadow

close up and blurred detail further away.

A vast expanse of greenery at the end of which lies a grove of yellow poplar; a

path that winds through a bit of landscape and intersects with others, dividing the

terrain into triangular islands of successive new views.

6

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED...contd..

Subordination strives to use all objects and features in the service of the design

and its intended effect. It can be seen in the subtle use of naturally occurring plants

throughout the park. Non-native species planted for the sake of their own

uniqueness defeat the purpose of design, as that very uniqueness draws attention

to itself where the intention is to enable relaxation: utility above all else.

Separation applies to areas designed in different styles and different uses enhancing

safety and reducing distraction.

A key feature of Central Park is the use of sunken roadways which traverse the

park and are specifically dedicated to vehicles as opposed to winding paths

designated specifically for pedestrians.

A beautiful example of this mix of principles is seen in the Park’s Mall in New

York's Central Park, a large promenade leading to the Bethesda Terrace and the

single formal feature in Olmsted and Vaux’s original naturalistic design. The

designers wrote that a "'grand promenade’ was an ‘essential feature of a

metropolitan park’ however, its formal symmetry, its style, though something of an

aberration, was designed so as to be subordinate to the natural view surrounding

it.

Wealthy passengers were let from their carriages at its south end. The carriage

would then drive around to the Terrace, which overlooked the Lake and Ramble to

pick them up, saving them the trouble of needing to double back on foot. The

Promenade was lined with slender elms and offered views of Sheep Meadow.

Affluent New Yorkers, who rarely walked through the park, mixed with the less

well-to-do, and all enjoyed an escape from the hustle and bustle of the surrounding

city.

7 Volunteer Park 1913


The main framework of any city plan is the transportation system, including in that

term the public ways, both of local and of general importance, the street railways,

the rapid transit railways, where such exist, the longdistance railways with their

terminals, and the facilities for waterborne traffic.

Comprehensive Planning Necessary.

The location and width of the new streets which are daily extending the

permanent framework of the city into new territory are now being fixed, in the

main, by the local landowners. Their business is simply to market their land, and, so

far as their limited control extends, to provide sufficient means of access to it to

attract purchasers.

Rapid Transit Routes.

But whatever the best rapid transit routes may prove to be, these facts are

tolerably clear about them:--First, that a paying rapid transit line cannot be built

until after a large part of the district through which it is to run is pretty fully

occupied--that is, until after most of the streets have been opened and built upon.

Second, that the cost of installing a rapid transit line in a district already subdivided

and built upon will depend mainly upon whether provision has been made in

advance for such a line in the layout of the city, because in the absence of such

provision it must either go under the streets, with all the drawbacks of subways, or

encumber the streets most objectionably with an elevated structure, or cut its way

through private building lots, all very costly operations, and apt to result in bad

alignment at that.

Third, that the question of how the city or any part of the city can have rapid

transit, and how far and how fast the passengers can be carried for five cents will

depend largely upon the cost of installing the lines.

Fourth, that the speed, the range, and the economy of local passenger

transportation is one of the most important factors making for comfortable and

healthful homes for the mass of the people, and against the overcrowding of

houses on the land and the exaction of excessive ground rents.

8


Surface Car Routes.

Of equal importance with the rapid transit lines properly so called, are the surface

car routes, which will become the feeders of the former, and which must be the

main agency in extending the residential radius. While in the older part of the city

the cars must generally occupy streets laid out before the invention of electric

traction.

In a 60ft or 66ft. street, unless the sidewalks are excessively and unreasonably

curtailed, the roadway cannot be made wide enough for two vehicles to pass

between the curb and the street cars. Therefore the main stream of slowmoving

vehicles must perforce run upon the tracks.

Main Thoroughfares and Local Streets.

It is very important in dealing with the subject of city planning to maintain very

clearly the distinction between such main thoroughfares as we have been

discussing and the local streets, of which the prime object is to give means of

access to the lands and houses immediately abutting upon each, and in closebuilt

districts to admit light and air to the buildings that line them.

General Considerations Affecting the Location of Playgrounds and

Parks.

In any city closely covering a large area, welldistributed public playgrounds and

neighbourhood parks become one of the urgent needs if the health and vigour of

the people are to be maintained. And the most important classes to provide for

are the children and the women of wageearning families.

9 Washington Park Prospect Park


Activities of Public Recreation Grounds.

The size, form, and character of public neighbourhood recreation grounds depend

upon the functions to be performed by each. Some of the activities where they are

well developed, as, for example, in Chicago are these :

1. The playing of little children in sand piles, and upon the lawn, and in a shallow

wading pool, and in open shelters, under the watchful guidance of an attendant,

who not only keeps them out of mischief and danger, but plays with them, tells

them stories, and stimulates the healthy activity of their little minds and bodies.

The mothers may come with their children and sit by them while they play, or may

leave them in safety while at work. A plot but 100 ft. square may be of value for

such use.

2. For the boys of larger growth, and also for the girls and women, the more active

games and gymnastic exercises, with and without apparatus, in the open air when

the weather permits, and under cover in the winter, always with the opportunity

and inducement to wash and bathe, and sometimes with a swimming pool to boot.

Sometimes space is found for the big field games, and regular athletic sports on a

running track, sometimes for nothing that takes more space than basketball or

fives.

3. For the older and less active people a few pleasant shaded walks and benches to

stroll and sit upon, from which to see the youngsters play, and once or twice a

week perhaps a band concert.

10 New York City parks


Activities of Public Recreation Grounds.

4. For the use of all a fieldhouse, where the sanitary accommodations are kept to

a standard of cleanliness and good order that sets a good example to the

neighbourhood where a reading branch of the public library is available, and in

which one or more large rooms are at the disposal of the neighbourhood for

lectures, entertainments, and dances: clean, healthy recreation given full play amid

decent surroundings, instead of being driven to the saloon, dancehall, and the like.

A fullfledged recreation centre is a large and elaborate affair, and a costly one to

keep in operation, and until the taxpayers have satisfied themselves by tentative

experiment that such things are worth their cost, a much more modest scale must

be adopted; but there are such advantages in the possibility of gradually building up

a group of related activities, that it is extremely desirable to secure rather

goodsized tracts, 20 acres if possible, rather than split the same area into a large

number of very small squares.

As to the total area to be secured, it is so seldom possible to get enough that

there is little danger of overdoing the purchase of such local parks. There is a

rather general consensus of opinion that about 5 per cent of the total area

devoted to local parks, play grounds, and squares is a reasonable minimum

standard at which to aim, and that more than 10 per cent. may be uneconomic

11 New York City parks

D.CLEARANCE PERRY

Clarence Arthur Perry was an American planner, sociologist, author, and

educator. He was born in Truxton, New York. He later worked in the New York

City planning department where he became a strong advocate of

the Neighborhood unit. He was an early promoter of neighborhood community

and recreation centers.

The concept of the neighbourhood unit, crystallised from the prevailing social

and intellectual attitudes of the early 1900s by Clarence Perry is an early

diagrammatic planning model for residential development in metropolitan areas.

It was designed by Perry to act as a framework for urban planners attempting to

design functional, self-contained and desirable neighbourhoods in the early 20th

century in industrialising cities.

It continues to be utilised (albeit in progressive and adapted ways, see New

Urbanism), as a means of ordering and organising new residential communities in a

way which satisfies contemporary "social, administrative and service requirements

for satisfactory urban existence".

The neighbourhood unit was conceived of as a comprehensive physical planning

tool, to be utilised for designing self-contained residential neighbourhoods which

promoted a community centric lifestyle, away from the "noise of the trains, and out

of sight of the smoke and ugliness of industrial plants" emblematic of an

industrialising New York City in the early 1900s.

A diagram of Clarence Perry's neighbourhood unit, illustrating the spatiality of the

core principles of the concept, from the New York Regional Survey, Vol 7. 1929

The core principles of Perry's Neighbourhood Unit were organised around several

physical design ideals.

12

D.CLEARANCE PERRY…Contd…

Principles

"Centre the school in the neighbourhood so that a child's walk to school was

only about one-quarter of a mile and no more than one half mile and could be

achieved without crossing a major arterial street. Size the neighbourhood to

sufficiently support a school, between 5,000 to 9,000 residents, approximately 160

acres at a density of ten units per acre. Implement a wider use of the school

facilities for neighbourhood meetings and activities, constructing a large play area

around the building for use by the entire community.

Place arterial streets along the perimeter so that they define and distinguish

the "place" of the neighborhood and by design eliminate unwanted through-traffic

from the neighborhood. In this way, major arterials define the neighborhood,

rather than divide it through its heart.

Design internal streets using a hierarchy that easily distinguishes local streets

from arterial streets, using curvilinear street design for both safety and aesthetic

purposes. Streets, by design, would discourage unwanted through traffic and

enhance the safety of pedestrians.

Restrict local shopping areas to the perimeter or perhaps to the main

entrance of the neighborhood, thus excluding nonlocal traffic destined for these

commercial uses that might intrude on the neighborhood.

Dedicate at least 10 percent of the neighborhood land area to parks and

open space, creating places for play and community interaction"

The neighbourhood unit was embraced for its community idealism, and many of

the public sectors in those countries which were exposed to the theorem have

since adopted its purpose; of protecting and promoting the public health and of

considering the safety and welfare of citizens.

Furthermore, private developers and investors continue to construct and fund

planned communities based upon many of the concepts tenets, due to consumer

demand for the idealistic community intimacy associated with living

with heteronormative homo reciprocans of similar socioeconomic status. These

attractive qualities of the concept of the neighbourhood unit are referred to by

Allaire, "as reflecting a nostalgia for rural living".

13

D.CLEARANCE PERRY…Contd…

The concept of the neighbourhood unit is a notable aspect of designs of the new

town movement . The neighbourhood unit seems to have an uneasy relationship to

the Garden City Movement of the same period – consider garden suburbs.

Raymond Unwin – an architect working for Ebenezer Howard – was an advocate

of the neighbourhood unit.

14 Diagram of Clearance Perry

Neighborhood unit

The Aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era. It was defined

by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers the Soviet

Union (USSR) and the United States of America (US) creating a bipolar world.

Temporarily allied during World War II, the US and the USSR became competitors

on the world stage and engaged in what became known as the Cold War, so called

because it never boiled over into open war between the two powers but was

focused on espionage, political subversion and proxy wars.

Western Europe and Japan was rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan

whereas Eastern Europe was in the Soviet sphere of influence and was excluded

from the Marshall Plan. The world was divided into an US-led Western Bloc and a

Soviet-led Eastern Bloc with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War

through the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Cold War also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, part of

the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the USSR and

the US had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a MAD situation.

As a consequence of the war, the Allies created the United Nations, a new global

organization for international cooperation and diplomacy.

The United Nations agreed to outlaw wars of aggression in an attempt to avoid

a third world war. The devastated great powers of Western Europe formed the

European Coal and Steel Community (that later evolved into the European Union)

in an attempt to avoid another war by economic cooperation and a common

market for important natural resources.

The war also increased the rate of decolonization from the weakened great

powers (Japan and Italy lost their colonies directly because they lost the war),

with India and Indonesia becoming independent in the years immediately following

the end of the conflict.

15

Ques2. List down the various challanges that a city of world war 2 faced.

At the end of the war, millions of people were homeless, the European economy

had collapsed, and much of the European industrial infrastructure had been

destroyed. The Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected. In response, in

1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the "European Recovery

Program", which became known as the Marshall Plan. Under the plan, during 1948-

1952 theUnited States government allocated US$13 billion (US$136 billion in 2012

dollars) for the reconstruction of Western Europe.

After the end of the war, a conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, to set up

peace treaties . The countries that fought with Hitler lost territory and had to

pay reparations to the Allies . Germany and its capital Berlin were divided into

four parts. The zones were to be controlled by Great Britain, the United States,

France and the Soviet Union. The three western Allies and the Soviet

Union disagreed on many things and as time went on Germany was divided into

two separate countries : East Germany , which had a Communist government and

West Germany, which was a democratic state . Berlin was also divided into East

and West Berlin. Austria was also occupied by the four Allies from 1945 to 1955.

One by one, the Russians started to take over countries in eastern Europe

and install Communist governments there. The division of Europe was the

beginning of the Cold War, between the democratic nations of the west and the

Communist countries of eastern Europe. The Iron

Curtain marked the border between these two regions.

16

Ques2. List down the various challanges that a city of world war 2

faced.....contd...

German occupation zones after

World War II

After the war many Nazi leaders were arrested and punished for what they had

done in the war. The most famous war trials were held at Nuremberg, Germany.

Those who were responsible for brutal crimes were sentenced to death.

Many problems arose after the war was over. One of them focused on the city of

Berlin which was deep inside the Russian zone. In June 1948, the Soviet Union

tried to drive the western powers out of Berlin by blocking all routes to the city.

For a whole year the Allies flew in food, fuel and other things that the population

needed to survive . Finally , the Russians gave up and the blockade ended. In 1961

the Russians built a wall around Berlin to stop their citizens from escaping to

the west.

The biggest task was to rebuild Europe, which lay in ruins . In 1948 the United

States set up the Marshall Plan to help Europe’s economy. 18

nations received 13 billion dollars worth of food machines and other goods .

During World War II , four of the Allied powers—the United States, Great Britain,

the Soviet Union and China— agreed to create an organization that should

work for peace . In April 1945 fifty countries signed a charter and gave birth to

the United Nations.

17

Ques2. List down the various challenges that a city of world war 2

faced.....contd...

Division of Europe : the free western

countries (blue) and Coimmunist Eastern

Europe (red) - grey countries are neutral

Although the economies of Europe were already achieving near miracles of

recovery through their own efforts, Marshall Plan funds played a crucial role in

rebuilding—but only in the West and in Yugoslavia, where Josip Broz Tito refused

to permit any Soviet interference. Stalin refused to allow any Soviet- controlled

nation to accept what he regarded as a blatant American attempt to buy Eastern

European friendship.

Thanks to their own superhuman efforts, plus the boost provided by the Marshall

Plan, Western European countries returned to normal much faster than anyone

would have expected on seeing the destruction wrought by the war.

Infrastructure was rebuilt, theatres reopened, and people went back to work.

Many difficulties, including food shortages and rationing, continued to exist for

some time after the war, but governments took what steps they could to bring

their nations back to prosperity.

Behind the Iron Curtain, however, conditions were quite different. Although one

benefit of Communist rule was full employment, jobs were assigned with-

out regard to individual preferences, and wages were low. Housing was over-

crowded—an entire family sharing a one-room apartment without a private

kitchen or bathroom was typical in all Soviet cities.

18


faced.....contd...

Soviet flag on the roof of the

Reichstag in Berlin

19


faced.....contd...

RUINS AFTER

WORLD WAR II

In addition, there were constant shortages of necessities, and luxury

goods were a thing of the past. Behind the Iron Curtain, there was never any

guarantee that shops would have anything to sell. When people heard that a

market had just received a truckload of, say, fresh eggs, a long line of

customers would appear at that market as if by magic, because it might be

the last chance for eggs for a month or more. People carried shopping bags

called “perhaps bags” everywhere they went, just in case—perhaps—there

might be something to buy and carry home. Barter, rather than cash

purchases, became common. The state owned and ran all businesses and

industries, so no one had any personal pride or vested interest in doing a

good job or seeing his or her business succeed.

Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of India during the British Raj until

December 1911. However, Delhi had served as the political and financial centre of

several empires of ancient India and the Delhi Sultanate, most notably of

the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857. During the early 1900s, a proposal was

made to the British administration to shift the capital of the British Indian Empire

(as it was officially called) from Calcutta to Delhi.

Unlike Calcutta, which was located on the eastern coast of India, Delhi was located

in northern India and the Government of British India felt that it would be easier

to administer India from Delhi rather than from Calcutta. Thanks to their own

superhuman efforts, plus the boost provided by the Marshall.

CONVERTING DELHI INTO INDIA'S new imperial capital was far more

challenging, and retrospectively, far less successful. That has a great deal to do

with the fact that the priority of the colonial political class was to provide an

urban form to their imperial vision rather than create a capital around the

historic identity of Delhi and its requirements.

Similarly, as will be soon be evident to the reader, some epochal moments in the

transformation of post independence Delhi, would also be shaped by the motives

of India's political class - in the guise of national needs and, as with the

Commonwealth Games, international aspirations - rather than the character and

the problems of the city.

To begin with, building the new city took some twenty years, and this was in

spite of the fact that the decision to build a 'new Delhi' was taken

simultaneously with the decision to transfer the capital. The royal couple had

laid the foundation stones of that new capital with great ceremony within the

precincts of the durbar camp. Hardinge had also moved quickly.

By the end of March 1912 he had departed from Calcutta with all the

paraphernalia of the viceregal court. Soon, temporary quarters for the government

offices were being built in Delhi and Hardinge was choosing the site where the city

would be located.

20

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your

choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.

Several locations were considered, and rejected. The durbar area was declared

uninteresting and unhealthy as also liable to flooding. Sabzi Mandi was better,

but acquisition of the factory areas would annoy mill owners. Civil Lines,

similarly, would antagonize the European population, which would have to be

evicted.

For reasons of health, for its undulating land, for the space it provided,

and for its relationship with many historic sites, the Raisina village area and

hill were what appealed to the Viceroy: "From the top of the hill there was a

magnificent view embracing old Delhi and all of the principal monuments

situated outside the town, with the River at a little distance. I said at

once....'This is the site for Government House.' " With the construction of

Government House, though, large segments of the magnificent Raisina hill

would have to be blasted away.

'Independence Day' dawned on 15th August 1947 but the

celebrations started on 14th August. These began in the Assembly hall, when

the Constituent Assembly of India, made up of Indians who were drafting a

constitution for the new nation, held a special session that started at 11 p.m.

The star speaker that night was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru whose words

imparted a strong sense of occasion. "At the stroke of the midnight hour when the

world sleeps," Nehru announced, "India will awake to life and freedom".

As members of the Assembly listened to the chimes which announced the

midnight hour, one of them blew a conch shell to announce the great event.

Thousands crowded around the entrance to the Council building that night

while shopping centres, public buildings, temples and homes all over Delhi

were decorated with lights and with the national flag.

How did resettlement of refugees proceed? On the one hand, several thousand

refugees 'resettled' themselves in the sense that abandoned Muslim homes

were forcibly occupied by Hindus and one estimate mentions that nearly

44,000 Muslims houses were occupied in old Delhi alone.

21



..contd...

On the other hand, the government sought to rehabilitate Muslims from 'mixed

localities' into 'Muslim areas' or what were called 'Muslim zones'. Muslim localities

(including Sadr Bazar, Pahari Imli and Pul Bangash) were cordoned off and

'abandoned' houses there were kept empty so that Muslims could return to them

or other Muslims could be moved there from 'mixed areas'.

A large number, as many as thirty six, rehabilitation colonies for refugees were

also created as emergency projects. Rajendra Nagar, Patel Nagar, Tilak Nagar

and Lajpat Nagar are among the largest of those colonies, and as the historian

Ramachandra Guha pointed out to me, "they are named after Congress Hindus

who were not as pro-Muslim as Gandhi and Nehru were thought to be!“

Meher Chand Khanna, then Minister for Rehabilitation, apparently named several

government colonies on the basis of who the occupants were. Sewa Nagar was

so named because it was where peons, daftaris etc. lived while the joint

secretaries and directors were housed in Maan Nagar and Shan Nagar.

Apparently, it was after Nehru made his annoyance clear that the names of Shan

Nagar and Maan Nagar were changed to Bharati Nagar and Rabindra Nagar .

Occupationally, since most refugees in Delhi came from the urban areas of

West Pakistan, they moved towards trade and commerce. In many parts of

Delhi, shops and businesses were taken over by such refugees. About 90% of

the shops in Chandni Chowk's Cloth Market, for example, originally belonged

to the old residents of Delhi but over time Punjabi refugees took over the bulk

of the business, with a mere 10% eventually remaining in the control of the old

merchants.

The retail and general merchandise shops under the incredibly

hardworking and pushy Punjabi refugees, in fact, became the primary reason

why Delhi, post-independence, became a big retail market city.

22



..contd...

While the dynamism and drive with which refugees rebuilt their lives and the

alacrity with which the government rehabilitated them, make for a deeply

moving story, it also hastened haphazard urban growth. By the 1950s, this

alarmed many in the city - among them Prime Minister Nehru. Unlike recent

Prime Ministers, Nehru took a keen interest in Delhi.

His Selected Works contain all kinds of nuggets that highlight this - from deciding

that government offices and official buildings should be placed on both sides of the

Vista (now Rajpath) to the way in which the National Museum jutted out of line

with the other buildings ("I hope no other building would be constructed which

encoraches on the open space of the Vista").

That a security blanket ought to be created around prized heritage buildings can

also be traced back to the ideas of Nehru who in 1955 complained to the Union

Minister of Education that India's old and historical places were getting spoilt by

new buildings being put around them. In order to protect them from such

intrusion, Nehru suggested that the government can "lay down that within a

certain area no building should be put up without permission".

An example of Nehru's proactive approach on this protective barrier is the

enclosure encircling the tomb of Abdur Rahim Kahn-i-Khana in Delhi. This was

done after Nehru had visited it and had suggested that the adjacent grounds be

converted into a small garden or park because, as he put it, he "did not want what

was called by the uncouth name of 'Nizamuddin Extension East' " to extend into

the area around the tomb.

There are extensive comments on the ways in which Delhi's 'fair' face was

being blemished by unplanned growth as well. As Nehru put it, "Delhi will be

spoilt completely if there is no overall planning of the city and we do not stop

odd structures going up without paying attention to larger considerations of

planning, health, sanitation, keeping of open places and the future growth of

the city.“

Profiteering and speculation around land in Delhi during the 1950s

was rife, involving all kinds of people, including senior government officials.

Nehru's concern about such speculation is captured in this letter which he

wrote on 26th July 1956 to Swaran Singh, then Minister of Works, Housing

and Supply. 23



..contd...

By 1956, Nehru had decided that there would be a central authority to control

and regulate the expansion of Delhi and that this authority would draw up a

detailed plan for this purpose.47 In 1957, institutions which Dilliwallas today

associate with the planning, upkeep and problems of their city were created.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Development

Authority (DDA) were set up that year, with the DDA's objective being "to

promote and secure the development of Delhi according to Plan.

" Work on the Master Plan for Delhi began even before this and was prepared by a

team of Indian planners, most of whom were educated in the U.S., and assisted by

consultants of the Ford Foundation.

The senior architect and town planner, Kuldip Singh, remembers interning in

the summer of 1955 with the Town Planning Organization, the institutional

umbrella under which the Indian planners who prepared the plan, worked. I

sought out Kuldip Singh, now 76 years old, to speak about his perspective on

the Master Plan, whose methodology and space standards later became bench

marks for planning cities all over India. Having spent more than half a century

studying and designing buildings in India, his description of the postindependence

political leaders who have sought to protect the character of Delhi is

straightforward and blunt.

Three Prime Ministers of India took a keen interest in the planning of Delhi. Nehru

would always be remembered, he says, for initiating the Master Plan of Delhi; Indira

Gandhi for the establishment of key institutions that went on to play an important

role in servicing and regulating the city - Housing Urban Development

Corporation (HUDCO) in 1970 for dealing with problems of housing for the

economically weaker sections as also the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) in

1974 for regulating the aesthetic and architectural aspects of the city 49 - and for

intervening to replan the Connaught Place extension of New Delhi in 1972; and

Rajiv Gandhi for ensuring that the Delhi Metropolitan Rail Corporation's (DMRC)

rails remained underground across Lutyens' Delhi. Kuldip Singh remembers a

meeting of architects and urban planners chaired by Rajiv Gandhi where the

DUAC's Perspective Plan 2000 for Delhi was being discussed, in which he shot

down in no uncertain terms a DDA- inspired plan for an elevated rail track across

Lutyens' Delhi. 24



..contd...

The Nehru-driven Master Plan aimed at balanced and integrated development

to take care of the growth of Delhi till 1981 - thus, it was also a long range

plan. It functionally zoned land uses, with the city being divided into a number

of planning divisions, each of these being visualized as self-contained in the

matter of employment, residential places, recreational areas, shopping and

other requirements.50 Commercial activity was decentralized, and

consequently, various district shopping centres were proposed so as to be within

easy reach of each residential pocket.

These were to be composite centres with shopping, business, commercial and

professional offices, local government offices, cinemas, restaurants and other places

of entertainment. Space came to be provided for the expanding population of the

University of Delhi with sites for twenty new colleges being earmarked in the plan

and another 2,900 acres for research institutions.

For the first time, thanks to the Master Plan, large open areas came to be

demarcated around monuments so that they could be better preserved. This

was done by developing huge 'greens' around historical monuments including

250 acres around Hauz Khas, 325 hectares in Tughlakabad, 175 hectares in

Jahanpanah, 75 hectares in Chirag Delhi and 100 hectares Siri Fort.52 Again,

it was this Master Plan which ensured that the Ram Lila grounds which

stretched from Delhi Gate to Ajmere Gate would not be built up and would

remain a major lung for the Old City.53 In fact, Delhi's urbanisable land itself,

as visualized till 1981, was to be surrounded by a green belt of agricultural

land to limit the city's physical growth and to prevent it merging with the cities

nearby.

The government, along with the plan, also set in place what was arguably the

largest land nationalization in Indian urban history, where the DDA was

empowered to acquire a projected area of 35,000 acres for housing through the

Land Acquisition Act. This land would be sold by the DDA after comprehensive

planning, and the surplus ploughed into public infrastructure.

25



..contd...

Singh is also quick to point out the deficiencies of that plan. A large part of

Delhi continued to grow unplanned, notwithstanding all the safeguards, with

lakhs of urban working poor living in illegal squatter colonies in the city.

The planning process continues in much the same way, in the sense that

subsequent Master Plans too have failed to provide adequate authorized

housing for millions of Delhi's citizens, even as rich illegal colonies like Sainik

farms are on the brink of being granted a legal status. A senior official of the

Urban Development Ministry of the Government of India informed me that

today in Delhi, three to four million people live lived in unauthorized colonies,

about the same number in slums, some one million in recently created

'resettlement' colonies where no planning regulations seem to have been

followed, and 2 million or so in rural and urban villages which, by law, are

exempt from the planning process.

Shahjahanabad, as before, has remained ignored in the planning process and

no worthwhile improvement has occurred here after the enforcement of the

Master Plan. On the contrary, in the 1960s, congestion only increased with the

average gross residential density per acre increasing from 443 in 1961 to 487

in 1971. Similar was the condition of its industrial units. The average space

occupied by an industrial worker in Shahjahanabad was only 140 sq ft as

against the corresponding figure of 348 sq ft in Okhla and 285 sq ft in the

Najafgarh Road Industrial Area. The problems of old Delhi are writ large across

the 1961 Master Plan when it notes "almost an absence of community facilities

and only sub-standard services there" or when it speaks about the necessity of

decogensting the Old City.

However, the modes through which there would be a thinning of the population in

the Old City through the redevelopment of other areas were not pursued as, for

instance, the scheme to house the population from the proposed redevelopment

of the Old City, in the Mata Sundari area which is today dotted with institutional

complexes, not residential pockets. Several schemes since the 1970s have been

suggested for rebuilding the walled city such as proposals for relocating part of its

bloated commercial component, pedestrianizing Chandni Chowk and construction

of a road linking Jama Masjid with Parliament Street (thus, translating, the visual

gesture that in Lutyens' plan, linked the Council House and Jama Masjid).

None of these schemes have been operationalized. 26



..contd...

From 2006 till 2009 this Advisory Committee in Delhi alone allowed constructions

within the prohibited zone of some 70 odd protected historical monuments

ranging from Safdarjung's Tomb and Humayun's Tomb to the Asokan rock edict in

Srinivaspuri and Jantar Mantar near Connaught Place. Among the most glaring such

permissions was that granted for the construction of the elevated road on

Barapullah Nullah which connects the Commonwealth Games Village with the

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium This runs just five metres from the early seventeenth

century Bara Pulah bridge and within 105 metres from Abdul Rahim Khan-i-

Khana's tomb (also built in the seventeenth century).

K.T. Ravindran, a senior urban planner and presently Chairman of DUAC, had

pointed out to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that it was too close to the

Bara Pulah bridge, and would endanger it and had advised the government to

consider another route. The ASI not only ignored the suggestion, it gave the green

signal to an elevated road which, for the two-week Commonwealth jamboree,

permanently compromised a nearly 400-year-old bridge.

And so, as 2011 begins, will Delhi will continue to experience the open spaces

around the city's monuments and the planned development that has famously

enhanced the visual appeal of large parts of their city? Or will they primarily

experience their city in the form of elevated roads and railway tracks outside

their homes? Without political will intervening to restore sanity to planning in

India's political capital, Kuldip Singh's words, may well turn out to be true:

"Known as a 'City of Monuments', Delhi in future could well be called the city of

'Serpentine Concrete.' "

27



..contd...

Bibliography

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_unit

2. http://www.cphabaltimore.org/2012/05/frederick-law-olmstead-

documentary-screening-in-patterson-park/

3. http://www.english-online.at/history/world-war-2/results-and-aftermath-

of-world-war-ii.htm

4. https://www.google.co.in/search?noj=1&biw=1366&bih=600&q=challanges%20

of%20germany%20after%20world%20war%202&um=1&ie=UTF-

8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=gIJmUuu0A4iKrgfNmoCQ

Aw

5. http://www.yale.net/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/20lahiri.pdf

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Delhi

28

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_unit

http://www.cphabaltimore.org/2012/05/frederick-law-olmstead-documentary-screening-in-patterson-park/
















http://www.english-online.at/history/world-war-2/results-and-aftermath-of-world-war-ii.htm




















https://www.google.co.in/search?noj=1&biw=1366&bih=600&q=challanges of germany after world war 2&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=gIJmUuu0A4iKrgfNmoCQAw






http://www.yale.net/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/20lahiri.pdf

http://www.yale.net/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/20lahiri.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Delhi

town planning

Documents

garden city movement

town hall

practical townplanning

town life

garden cities

clearance perry garden

sir ebenezer howard

modern city